A few years ago, Matthew Austin asked himself: In Southern California, where there’s a proliferation of wineries and craft beer breweries, was cider next?

He sure hoped so.

“I’ve been interested in the craft beverage industry for 10 to 15 years,” Austin says. “I’ve been home brewing — beer, wine and cider — for the same amount of time. When I was a little kid — I grew up in Kansas City, Mo. — I grew up around farms, and I’ve always had the kind of mind that was interested in science and business. The idea of taking agricultural products and using them to make things and sell them … that has always been something that spoke to me.”

Three years ago, he wondered if he could turn his home-brewing skills into a new venture, specifically a craft cider business. With the help of friend and business partner Lara Worm — whose family has been in the catering business for decades — they came up with a restaurant concept built around cider, an alcoholic drink made from fermented apple juice.

“I was intrigued by beer, wine and cider … and made lots of them,” Austin says. “I had followed the wine and craft beer movement and saw a hole” in what consumers could have.

Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune

The engine that drives Bivouac Ciderworks in North Park: executive chef Danilo "DJ" Tangalin and co-founders Lara Worm and Matthew Austin. The restaurant and cidery will celebrate its first-year anniversary in January.

The engine that drives Bivouac Ciderworks in North Park: executive chef Danilo "DJ" Tangalin and co-founders Lara Worm and Matthew Austin. The restaurant and cidery will celebrate its first-year anniversary in January. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Bivouac Ciderworks, a restaurant-cum-cidery on 30th Street in North Park, is getting ready to celebrate its first anniversary in January, and Austin says he couldn’t be happier with what he and his team — co-founder Worm and executive chef Danilo “DJ” Tangalin — has accomplished.

“We’re pretty unique, and people can see that,” says Austin, who besides being co-founder holds the titles of president and head cidermaker. “We’ve had such an awesome experience these past few months — getting customer feedback about our cider and our food and taking everything to the next level.”

The North Park space at 3986 30th St. is home to a restaurant and a cidery. Designed by Tecture — the San Diego design firm behind Patio on Goldfinch, George’s at the Cove and Nolita Hall — the 2,500-square-foot space has a sleekly refined look that meshes wood, steel and stone to evoke the outdoors, complete with a back wall made to look like the night sky.

Courtesy photo by Jennifer Siegwart

Designed by Tecture — the San Diego design firm behind Patio on Goldfinch, George’s at the Cove and Nolita Hall — the 2,500-square-foot space has a sleekly refined look that meshes wood, steel and stone to evoke the outdoors.

Designed by Tecture — the San Diego design firm behind Patio on Goldfinch, George’s at the Cove and Nolita Hall — the 2,500-square-foot space has a sleekly refined look that meshes wood, steel and stone to evoke the outdoors. (Courtesy photo by Jennifer Siegwart)

Inside the space, there are three 1,400-gallon stainless steel fermenters and four 450-gallon barrel bright tanks. At any given time, eight or more house varieties are in the tasting room. The menu normally has eight Bivouac ciders and five guest ciders — what Austin likes to call “out ciders.”

Since opening in January, Bivouac Ciderworks has been racking up “best” accolades — from best new restaurant and best new brewery to best cidery and best chef. They’re accomplishments Austin doesn’t take lightly.

“We’re proud of what we have done,” he says. “We’re passionate people who love what we do, and I think people have appreciated what we are doing. But we’re also humbled by the entire experience.”

They’re not about to rest on their laurels. Every step of the way, Austin says, they have been deliberate and careful in how everything was rolled out — from new cider flavors to menu changes.

“For me, it’s all about the product,” says Austin, an architecture graduate who’s injected his methodical approach into every aspect of the business. “I didn’t want to put out any of our ciders before they were ready. We’ve taken a slow approach. We wanted to try out a bunch of recipes and get consumer feedback. … Come up with an idea, tinker with it, get feedback, refine it and do it again.”

It’s an approach that felt right to Tangalin, a chef who’s worked in many of the top kitchens in San Diego, from PrepKitchen Little Italy and Sea 180 Coastal Tavern to JRDN and, most recently, Tidal, where he was executive chef.

“I was classically French-trained,” Tangalin says. “I worked at a lot of high-end restaurants. My push comes from doing food and taking it to the next level. This didn’t look like a traditional move for me, but there was something about the project, the concept … something that moved me forward. This presented a new set of food challenges, and I wanted to be a part of it. It’s something new and small and not super-corporate.”

Experimentation yields success

Everything, Austin says, begins with the apples.

There are thousands of apple varieties all over the world, and “most ciders in the U.S. come from dessert varieties,” Austin says. Those apples are characterized by low tannin and low acidity.

“In Europe,” he adds, “the cider comes from bittersharp or bittersweet varieties.” Bittersharp varieties contain high levels of tannin and acidity, while bittersweet varieties have low levels of acidity and high levels of tannin.

For Austin, years of experimentation — first at his home in Mount Helix and now at the cidery in North Park — has finally paid off. What began as an idea in the fall of 2015 has yielded much success. Last month, Bivouac Ciderworks mounted a distribution program supplying cider on draft at bars and restaurants around town and can currently be found at more than 30 San Diego establishments. In March, its cider will be released in cans. And the restaurant side? That’s doing well, too.

“When Lara and I decided to do a restaurant, we tried to figure out what kind of restaurant that would be,” Austin says. “We knew it needed to be the kind of restaurant that would show off our work, where people can experience flavors and where we could teach and taste and experiment. Once we figured that out, we needed a great chef to build a menu that would interact with our ciders.”

Tangalin has done just that.

“He made all this really amazing, very rustic healthy food that was phenomenal,” Austin says. “We were just blown away how he was able to interpret and execute what we were trying to be and trying to do.”

The result is a menu that works well with cider and one that showcases Tangalin’s strengths. His classical culinary training is evident in the depth of the flavors and the sophistication of the presentation. It’s a menu that’s meant to satisfy the everyday diner — check out the fish and chips or the fried chicken — while at the same time catering to some who might favor something more, like the Georges Bank Scallops, plated with grilled peppers, eggplant jam, basil and butternut squash puree. It’s also all gluten-free, just like cider itself.

“We wanted to provide a gastropub experience,” Austin says, “but at the same time, we didn’t want to be just a one-note type of establishment.”

What’s behind the name

“Embrace your adventure” is the mantra for Bivouac Ciderworks, a name inspired by the definition of bivouac.

“I’m a very outdoorsy guy,” Austin says. “I like to sail, climb, fish and camp — that’s how I grew up. Bivouac means temporary camp. To me, it spoke to our desire to embrace adventure, spoke to the idea of temporariness … and the product and the fruit we were working with. We wanted to have that camping experience, camaraderies and safety within these walls. … Bivouac really encompassed the ethos of both our product and our brand.”

That sense of adventure is reflected in Tangalin’s ever-changing menu, one that, here and there, pays homage to Tangalin’s Filipino heritage. A part of the growing Filipino food movement, Tangalin incorporates Filipino flavors and ingredients into Bivouac Ciderworks’ evolving food lineup.

The process of building the menu, Tangalin says, took about six months and started out with more than 40 ideas. The result was a winnowed down list of 30 — a playful mix of what Austin and Worm envisioned and Tangalin’s culinary thumbprint. The Filipino influence is evident in dishes like the Wagyu Skirt Steak a la Bistek Tagalog ($15), Beef Shank Soup ($12) and Adobo Fried Chicken ($15) and desserts like Pandesal Beignets ($8) and Ube Panna Cotta ($8). In the Pork, Pork, Pork ($15), traditional ingredients like pulled pork, grilled pork belly, braised kale, provolone and mustard aioli rise to an entirely new level of deliciousness when paired with sweet Filipino sausage known as longanisa.

“I was really challenged in the beginning of how cider would taste with different kinds of foods,” Tangalin says. “The Filipino aspect was not by design but at the same time not by accident — it was organic. A lot of sour and simple ethnic dishes pair well with apple, so it made sense. As we progressed, I realized this is a pairing that works.”

The journey, Tangalin says, has been transformative.

“I cook with my heart and what I know, and this is food I know,” Tangalin says. “I truly believe if you build it, they will come.”